304 CORRESPONDENCE OF ^832

In full confidence that this will be so in your case, I grant
you entire absolution, and remain

Yours truly

William Jay.
J. Fenimore Cooper Esqr, Paris

TO JOHN ALLEN COLLIER

Paris, Dec. i4th, 1832
My dear Collier,

If there is another man in Broome beside yourself who
could write the adventure of The Hon. Mr. Hill and
The Barber, Mr. Bill, why, wit is rife among you. We
have been laughing over it until the tears came to relieve
us. Great joy like great grief will sometimes find vent at
the eyes. I know nothing of the Honorable Mr. Hill,
who is to be a perfect terra incognita in politics as well as
in literature, but I very well know what fun is. I have
just been giving a little myself to the French, and I take
advantage of your franking privileges to send you a copy.
The history of my morceau is this:—The Doctrinaires—
who are gentry that believe in the possibility of having
Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy all at once—in
their jealousy of us, have let loose the curs of abuse upon
us for the last twelvemonth. I have personified this theory
under the name of The Three Ideas, and have made them
the organs of proclaiming their own nonsense as respects
us, by giving their facts and arguments a little coloured,
and, by George, not much coloured either. You probably
do not understand French well enough to feel my drift,
and it is absolutely necessary to read the article in the
original, to be familiar with all that has passed, and to be
au fait of French character, in order to feel all I would
express. At all events I have been so amused with Mr.ins, and you therefore commenced with a confession of